Vakula
Blacksmith Vakula is the main character of the work. He is a strong, brave and hardworking guy. In addition to blacksmithing, he has a hobby - drawing. He is considered the best painter in the area and is even invited to work in other cities, such as Poltava. One day, he painted a picture of Saint Peter, on the day of the Last Judgment, expelling an evil spirit from hell, and hung it in the church. For this, the devil was offended by him and swore to take revenge on him. That night, the devil decides to steal the month so that Chub, the father of the blacksmith’s beloved Oksana, would be afraid to leave the house, and Vakula would not be able to meet her alone. But the plan fails, and Chub, despite the darkness, still goes to visit.
Vakula comes to Oksana, whom he loves very much, although she does not reciprocate, although she still has some feelings for him. She, laughing, sets a condition for marriage - to get her the slippers (shoes) that the Empress of Russia herself wears.
At first the blacksmith wants to drown himself, but then he decides to ask Patsyuk, who knows everything, for advice. He invites him to turn to the devil himself, especially since he carries him in a bag. It turned out that Vakula, having taken a bag from the house, as it seemed to him, with garbage, was carrying the devil, who visited his mother, the witch Solokha, and hid in it. The blacksmith quickly saddles the devil, who takes him to St. Petersburg, where he begs the empress for booties.
Meanwhile, Oksana understands that she behaved badly with Vakula, that he could leave her or even commit suicide. She suffers all night, and by morning she realizes that she has fallen madly in love with him. The next day, upon his return from St. Petersburg, they meet, and he gives her boots, but she is already ready to marry him without any conditions. Her father Chub also agrees to the marriage.
A few years later, Vakula is building a new beautiful house, and Oksana is already babysitting their child.
Vakula’s attitude from “The Night Before Christmas” towards others
Then he walked forward with a decisive step, caught up with the crowd, caught up with Oksana and said in a firm voice: “Farewell, Oksana!” Look for the kind of groom you want, fool whoever you want; and you will never see me again in this world. - Goodbye, brothers! - the blacksmith shouted in response. - God willing, we’ll see you in the next world; and now we can no longer walk together. Farewell, do not remember badly! Tell Father Kondrat to perform a memorial service for my sinful soul. Candles for the icons of the Wonderworker and the Mother of God, a sinner, did not detract from worldly affairs. All the good that is in my hiding place goes to the church! Farewell! Vakula is a strong-willed and decisive person; in the eyes of the people around him, he is firm. However, his soul is very sensitive. It is moments of such sensitivity that touch others, including Oksana.
Oksana
Having read the story “The Night Before Christmas” with many fabulous events and funny adventures, I would like to single out a beautiful girl named Oksana from the main characters of the work. This capricious, flighty and carefree girl was the daughter of the noble Cossack Chub. She is 16. She dressed very elegantly in expensive clothes, knew that young boys and girlfriends from her village were talking about her and was a very important arrogant person. Most of all, she loved to admire herself in the mirror, changing her outfits. They approached her, but no one could achieve her love. One blacksmith, Vakula, whom she constantly laughed at, was waiting for her to pay attention to him and fall in love with him. The girl very often looked at the reflection of the mirror with a great sense of self-satisfaction. One day, just before Christmas, this girl sends the blacksmith Vakula to the empress herself, so that he will fulfill her next whim and bring her slippers that the empress herself wears.
A little later in the story, we see that Oksana can experience sincere feelings of love and compassion. The girl greets the blacksmith with great joy when he returns with the slippers, and agrees to marry him. It combines such different feelings and character traits as narcissism, sadness, arrogance and embarrassment. We can conclude that Oksana can be not only a spoiled beauty who has only outfits on her mind, but also a person capable of the most sincere human feelings.
The character of Vakula from "The Night Before Christmas"
“The blacksmith was a God-fearing man and often painted images of saints.” “What more should I expect? - the blacksmith spoke to himself. - She's making fun of me. I am as dear to her as a rusty horseshoe. But if that’s the case, at least someone else won’t get to laugh at me. Let me just notice who she likes more than me; I’ll wean…” “No, I can’t; “I have no strength anymore...” he finally said. - But my God, why is she so damn good? Her look, and her speech, and everything, well, it burns, it burns... No, I can’t overcome myself anymore! It’s time to put an end to everything: lose your soul, I’ll go drown myself in a hole, and remember my name!” Honest, brave, resourceful, pious, sincere, hardworking.
Solokha
Describing the image of Solokha, the mother of the blacksmith Vakula, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol sought to ridicule in his work “The Night Before Christmas” such people who are distinguished by their cunning, hypocritical, seeking to do vile deeds and actions towards other people just to satisfy their interests. The heroine bowed only to the rich, especially to the wealthy Cossack Chub, because he had a very large farm, and she really wanted to get his hands on it. In her dreams, she was already thinking about how everything would be there when she was a full-fledged mistress. The writer depicted Solokha in close intertwining with reality and fantasy: in the work she can be a lively, clever village woman and ride around on a broomstick, like a witch who flirts with both the clerk and the devil. The village women envy her.
Solokha is very hypocritical, but at the same time she is beautiful and charming. Even her faith in God is a make-believe, as can be seen from the gatherings she organized during the strictest fast on Christmas Eve, and this was considered a great sin. The heroine is shown in two worlds (both the witch and Vakula’s mother). She does not create a terrible impression of herself, since in ordinary life she is a very kind woman who knows how to charm the most sedate and rich Cossacks of the village and even the devil himself. This loving and portly, not at all young heroine of the story is shown by the writer as a negative character. She, like the devil, turns into whoever she wants and does various things that a person cannot. Sly mockery is seen in the image of Solokha, created by the great writer. In it he wanted to show various human vices, such as treason, greed, self-interest and deception. The reader sees that everything that is bad in a person will usually come out in the end, and as a result he becomes funny to everyone and looks very stupid.
Crap
The devil is shown by the writer in the image of a very cunning and intelligent prankster. According to the plot of the work “The Night Before Christmas,” he had only one night left when he could “stagger” around the world and teach good people about his sinful deeds. This hero is endowed with traits characteristic of a person: he is very cunning, inventive, insidious, intelligent and... cowardly. Hearing the expression “Damn handsome”, “Smart as hell”, this story immediately comes to mind. A striking example of the expression of human feelings by the devil is his communication with a witch, to whom he whispered affectionate words in her ear, and then courted Solokha, kissing her hand. We perceive him not as a fictional and fairy-tale hero, but as a real one.
The devil is very vindictive, and as soon as such an opportunity to do this arises, he immediately rejoices and begins to act. He really wants to take revenge on the blacksmith Vakula, who painted a picture that the devil didn’t like. In this work, the devil is a prominent representative of evil spirits, that is, an evil spirit. The writer uses in his description folk legends in which demons can reincarnate (have horns, a tail, are covered with hair, with hooves, etc.), send hurricanes and blizzards. This is what we see on the pages of the story, where the story is told about the devil. The author explains all the actions of the devil, he endowed him with some kind of special charm, so that when reading the work, he no longer evokes fear or feelings of disgust in anyone. Well, like any coward, scoundrel, enemy of the human race, he, naturally, in the end will still be defeated by the good and positive hero blacksmith Vakula.
Vakula's speech from "The Night Before Christmas"
- Get to hell with your carols! - Vakula shouted angrily. - Why are you standing there? Do you hear me, get out this instant! "Laugh, laugh! - said the blacksmith, going out after them. - I laugh at myself! I think, and I can’t figure out where my mind went. She doesn't love me - well, God be with her! as if there is only one Oksana in the whole world. Thank God, there are many good girls in the village even without her. What about Oksana? she will never be a good housewife; She's just a master of dressing up. No, that’s enough, it’s time to stop fooling around.” The blacksmith did not want to disgrace himself and seem like a novice, moreover, as we had the opportunity to see above, he himself knew a literate language. - Noble province! - he answered indifferently. “There’s nothing to say: the houses are chattering, the paintings are hanging all over the place. Many houses are covered with gold leaf letters to the extreme. Nothing to say, wonderful proportion. Vakula’s speech is firm, decisive, simple and succinct. Vakula does not waste words. He can speak from a position of strength. At the same time, while remaining a sincere and sensual person at heart, he can win the affection of others with his words. Along with simple colloquial language, his speech also uses words that are rarely used in this environment. However, he can use them to give greater weight to his words and deeds in front of strangers.
Forelock
A lot of reviews have been written about the immortal work of the writer N.V. Gogol “The Night Before Christmas,” which has been studied and read with inexhaustible interest for many decades. Among them was from A.S. Pushkin, in which the great Russian poet said that he had not laughed so joyfully and sincerely for a long time.
This great work, like many other stories and stories by Gogol, was filled with various events related to mysticism that took place in the life of Ukrainian villages in the 18th century.
The author does not set out to expose his heroes; he very accurately notices and laughs at all the shortcomings and flaws that they have. If we consider the rich Cossack Chub, who has a very beautiful daughter Oksana, we can see the humorous contradiction underlying this image. This rather wealthy and respected (so he thinks) Cossack claims to be respectable. He doesn't want his daughter to date a blacksmith who, in his opinion, is not rich enough for his daughter. He is deeply convinced that a better match can be found for his only child, so he prevents their communication. Chub does not want to see that these two people love each other; for him the most important thing is not feelings, but money and wealth. The widower himself does not deny himself the pleasure of visiting the Dyak at a party organized for the same “respected” guests. He often visits the charming witch Solokha (not knowing that she has an abundance of such suitors).
Reading chapter after chapter, we see that the Cossack Chub is actually a cowardly and insignificant person. People like him are hated by all the villagers, as they oppress them in everything. Their moral qualities are not at all as good as the truly respected Cossacks of the village should have.
For me, this story is a real fairy tale, where many wonderful things and events happen. This is only possible on the night before Christmas. Here, as in fairy tales, good always triumphs over evil and injustice, and truth always triumphs in its victory.
Deacon
Humor in Gogol’s work “The Night Before Christmas” occupies a significant part; it is based on the discrepancy noticed by the author between the internal and external world in which people live. We can see this in the example of an interesting image - clerk Osip Nikiforovich. He wants to look like an important person, but finds himself in an absolutely comical situation for him. Reading this story, everyone laughs heartily not only at Dyak, but also at all the other “important” people in the village who ended up in coal sacks in the house of the loving witch Solokha.
The author draws numerous images from the people, these are attractive and kind people. But there are also those, including Dyak, who live by petty interests, are rich but stupid. The work reveals a manner that is unique to this writer - noticing the sad behind the funny. Talking about the Deacon, who loved to receive guests, gathering “pleasant company”, and visited the witch Solokha for worldly pleasures (only when the deacon was not in the village at that time), the author explains to the reader that not all clergy were God-fearing and sinless people. The conclusion is that they were mostly hypocrites and liars. The life depicted by the writer is a constant struggle of his heroes with various human vices. This large list includes such as: envy, anger, ignorance, cunning and greed. These negative character traits are embodied not only in the images of the devil and the witch (as representatives of evil spirits), but also in the image of Dyak, Chub and Patsyuk. There is no mysticism in the negative characters; they only evoke good-natured and cheerful laughter from the reader.
Patsyuk
While studying Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol’s story “The Night Before Christmas” at school, we were once again convinced of the talent of this great writer. In many of his works one can feel the writer’s faith in goodness, justice and, of course, in God. Where such faith exists, all the representatives of evil spirits presented in the story are defeated. We are convinced of this by reading the work.
N.V. Gogol had a very amazing quality as a writer; he could combine the fictional and fabulous with reality. A completely special world appears before the readers, where there are its own rules, laws and Ukrainian folk traditions. According to one of them, on the night before Christmas, girls and boys go caroling; this celebration is carried out with carol songs, wishes for wealth and health to the owners whose houses the youth enter. On this evening, revered and respected wealthy Cossacks also go to visit, checking on each other. And in this very real world, another world, a fairy tale, organically appears. They are harmoniously merged into a single whole. And now it seems to us that there is nothing special at all in the fact that a Cossack named Patsyuk eats dumplings, simply bending over the plate. He didn't even lift a finger to pick up the spoon. In this image, Gogol ridicules such vices as idleness and human laziness. To create more vivid images, including the Zaporozhye Cossack Patsyuk, the writer uses natural sketches. This enchanted world that the author writes about is full of animated natural phenomena. But the images themselves do not have mysticism, they are not scary to the reader, but only cause a smile. In some episodes of the story, we simply laugh heartily at them and their vices.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol
Christmas Eve
ABOUT GOGOL'S STORY
Gogol’s story “The Night Before Christmas,” part of the cycle of his early stories under the general title “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka,” is a programmatic work for the writer: it identifies many themes, ideas, images, characters, destinies, heroes that will accompany a great artist throughout his difficult path. In this story, a wonderful, epically large-scale image of a simple man is created - the blacksmith Vakula, before whose energy, intelligence and hard work evil machinations, evil forces, human vices and the machinations of devils recede.
The blacksmith Vakula is a one-of-a-kind Gogol character, which captures the writer’s dreams of a strong and harmonious nature, created for free, joyful, useful work. It is usually said that Gogol did not write positive images, that, while perfectly revealing dead souls, he made them hate them, rejected and thereby affirmed the ideals of goodness, and praised honesty and virtue.
All this is true, but before Gogol realized the purpose of his muse and, in his own expression, “harnessed the scoundrel” in order to expose him to popular ridicule, he sharpened his pen on noble characters.
Without creating the image of the dreamer of universal justice, the sweet young man Hanz Küchelgarten, in his first poetic poem, without writing the life-affirming character of the blacksmith Vakula, without singing the courageous people's hero Taras Bulba, Gogol, perhaps, would not have been able to so fully realize his ascetic task - denunciation of the dead souls of the Russia of that time in the name of its amazing future life.
And although the division would be schematic, especially among the classics, into positive heroes and denounced characters - although in Gogol both of them constantly meet, side by side on the pages of the same works - it is still important and should indicate the leading direction of this story, plays, this particular stage of creativity. But the leading intonation of Gogol’s first prose works was still an optimistic, bright, cheerful intonation.
By creating strong and integral characters, Gogol seemed to be looking for that Archimedean fulcrum, upon which he could establish himself and turn the world upside down. In the future, he will try to turn the unjust world upside down with the crushing fire of satire, but for this the artist will need to know that behind him are such heroes as the blacksmith Vakula, the unbending defenders of his native land Taras Bulba and his son Ostap.
The blacksmith Vakula occupies a special place among the few positive images of Gogol’s creativity. If Taras and Ostap were revealed as wonderful characters on the battlefield, then Vakula’s character is revealed outside of battles and national upheavals, when it is more difficult for courage and nobility of soul to emerge.
From the very first pages of the story, Gogol draws the readers' attention to the remarkable property of Vakula - the blacksmith is constantly busy with work, people flock to him from everywhere with countless requests: to repair a chaise, to make a chest, to paint new dishes with patterns - all of Dikanka used bowls painted by Vakula . If a blacksmith wants to remind someone of himself, he only talks about the work he has done. In St. Petersburg, Vakula meets with the Cossacks who came on community business. At first they do not recognize the poor petitioner, but Vakula reminds: “It’s me, Vakula, the blacksmith! When we drove through Dikanka in the fall... then I put a new tire on the front wheel of your wagon..."
The blacksmith even tells his beloved, Oksana, about his business: he is preparing her a luxurious gift - an iron-bound casket, painted with flaming red and blue flowers. Vakula conveys the heat of his soul, talking about the “hot” radiance of the drawings for Oksana; he thinks that he can most likely conquer a girl through hard work, loyalty to his work, and the reliability of his strong hands. However, the capricious Oksana does not appreciate the modesty of her lover; give her unusual, rich gifts, for example, shoes “that the queen herself wears.” But Vakula, misunderstood by Oksana, does not betray himself - this courageous and honest hero of Gogol relies only on his own strength, on his work.
It is curious that even in the worst moments, when Oksana does not respond to his ardent love, Vakula does not indulge in aimless sadness, like other romantic heroes, and does not send cruel reproaches to the inexorable beauty. The blacksmith Vakula, upset after another unsuccessful date with Oksana, “absently looked around the corners of his hut...” and “finally fixed his eyes on the bags: “Why are these bags lying here?” It’s time to remove them from here long ago. This stupid love has made me completely stupid. Tomorrow is a holiday, and all sorts of rubbish is still lying in the house. Take them to the forge!“
